


Never Fear the Thing You Feel

by inexplicifics



Series: The Accidental Warlord and His Pack [15]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Families of Choice, Fluff, Gen, Uncle-Niece Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:00:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25238110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexplicifics/pseuds/inexplicifics
Summary: Letho doesn't know what to do when the kid he carried back from Leyda finds him andhugshim.He figures it out eventually.
Relationships: Letho z Gulety | Letho of Gulet & Original Character(s)
Series: The Accidental Warlord and His Pack [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683661
Comments: 263
Kudos: 3065
Collections: Good Relationship Etiquette (familial included) - or Good BDSM Etiquette - or Good Relationship and BDSM Etiquette





	Never Fear the Thing You Feel

Letho genuinely doesn’t expect to encounter the kid again after he delivers her back to her father. Oh, if her father is staying in Kaer Morhen, he presumes he’ll _see_ the kid again, but humans - especially small children - don’t exactly come running _to_ Witchers, as a general rule, and she’s got no reason to seek him out. And why should she? He’s nothing but a reminder of what must be the most terrifying few weeks in her young life.

So he’s quite honestly taken aback when, about a week after they got back from the whole Leyda mess, he’s crossing the courtyard from the smithy and a tiny form comes _sprinting_ across the cobbles and latches itself around his leg, clinging surprisingly tightly given its size.

Julita blinks up at him and grins, gap-toothed and so honestly _happy_ that it’s baffling. Letho holds still. He doesn’t know what to do with a small child! Sure, he carried her back from Leyda, but she was mostly quiet and traumatized or _asleep_ for the whole trip.

“Hey,” he says at last. “Where’s your...your Da?”

“Over there,” she chirps, waving one arm briefly and vaguely behind herself and then grabbing his leg again. Letho looks up to see Jan standing in the keep’s doorway. The man is _smiling_ , and utterly relaxed, as though seeing his daughter clinging to a Witcher isn’t worrying at all.

“Uh,” he says, frowning back down at Julita. “Alright. Uh - what do you want?”

“Wanted to see you, Unca Letho,” Julita says, and Letho feels rather as if he’s been hit square-on by one of Eskel’s full-strength Aards.

“ _What,_ ” he croaks. Jan apparently notices his distress; the man comes down the stairs hastily, and goes down on one knee to tug Julita gently away from Letho’s leg.

“Come on, darling, you’ve said hello, now we should let your Uncle Letho get back to his business,” he says, and that _doesn’t help_ , because what is the man _doing_ , teaching his kid to call Letho _uncle_ , like he’s - like he’s the sort of man who’s worth claiming, worth bringing into a _family_ , and not a bloodstained murderer like all his School?

Letho doesn’t flee, because Witchers flee from nothing, but he certainly walks away a little faster than he wants to admit.

Surely, he thinks, safely down in the hot springs, tucked into one of the hottest pools and surrounded by his fellows, surely that’s the end of it. She won’t do that _again_.

She does it again.

It seems that every three or four days, he’s minding his own godsdamned business when a tiny blonde streak comes hurtling out of a doorway or around a corner and latches onto his leg, and then he’s stuck there trying to converse with a five-year-old until her father finally shows up and detaches her and takes her away again. And she _keeps calling him her uncle_.

After the fourth time this happens, Letho goes and hunts Jan down, cornering him in the cluttered office that used to be Eskel’s. (Eskel is looking a lot less stressed these days, with an actual steward taking on the duties that used to be piled on Eskel’s shoulders. Not that Letho cares about the Wolf Witcher, but less stress among the Warlord’s council can only be a good thing.) “What the _hell_ ,” he demands gruffly.

Jan looks up from behind the desk and doesn’t even flinch away from Letho’s looming. “Sir?”

“Not sir, I’m not a fucking _Griffin_ ,” Letho says, distracted briefly from his original problem, and then, shaking himself, “Why the hell are you letting your kid keep _hugging_ me?”

“Julita is very fond of you,” Jan says calmly. “She told me you were the one to kill the last of the ladies of the wood, and you picked her up and carried her to safety, and then carried her all the way to Kaer Morhen; you’re big and warm and strong and kind, is how she put it.”

_Kind?_ Letho thinks wildly. “I’m not kind. I’m a fucking _Viper_.”

“You saved my daughter’s life, and brought her back to me,” Jan says.

“That’s - that’s just - I was doing what the Wolf said to,” Letho stammers.

“If you truly want me to, I will tell her to stop bothering you,” Jan sighs, but he smells _sad_. Nobody’s ever been _sad_ about having their kids _not_ spend time with Letho before. Hells, nobody’s really ever let Letho get _close_ to a kid before, really. And. Well. It’s not _awful_ to have the kid hugging his leg and - and calling him _Uncle_. And it’d be a pity to make the kid sad, too - she’s always so happy to see Letho, always so gleefully _pure_ in her joy. It’s just…

“Dunno how to be an uncle,” Letho says at last, after much too long a silence.

Jan smiles a little ruefully. “Well, I had no idea how to be a father when Roza and I were blessed with Julita. It’s a learnable skill, I assure you. Just...be kind to her. And don’t give her any knives until she’s at least ten.”

Letho barks a laugh, startled out of the spiraling confusion of his thoughts. “No knives,” he agrees gruffly. “Not until she’s ten.”

“Thank you,” Jan says, smiling, and he smells godsdamned _happy_ about a fucking _Witcher_ agreeing to be an _uncle_ to his child, and Letho has to go away and find a couple of Bears to spar with, until he’s feeling like the world makes a little more sense.

The next time Julita comes darting around a corner and attaches herself to his leg, he bends down and says, “Hey, kid.”

“Hey, Unca Letho!” Julita says, bouncing happily. She’s standing on his boot, but she hardly weighs anything, really; it’s fine.

“I’m going to the stables,” Letho says slowly. “Want to come?”

“Yes!” Julita cries.

Very carefully, Letho wraps his hands around her tiny waist and lifts her, propping her on his hip the way he’s seen some women carrying their children in various villages. Julita wriggles a little until she’s comfortable - presumably armor isn’t the most pleasant thing to sit on, but she doesn’t object - and leans trustingly into his arm around her, amusing herself by tapping each of the studs on his chestplate in turn, muttering numbers under her breath. Letho looks up to see Jan watching with a surprisingly indulgent smile.

“Stables,” Letho says, and Jan nods.

“Bring her back when you’re done,” he says, and vanishes down the corridor, and Letho boggles for a moment and then heads on down to the stables, where Auckes and Serrit are attempting to re-shoe the Viper horses. Fuck, if Jan manages to hire a farrier, every Viper in the keep will be eternally grateful. Something about the Viper mutagens tends to make horses not like them very much, and while they _can_ hold horses still with sheer brute strength, no one enjoys the experience.

“You have four twenties,” Julita informs him as he opens the door to the stables.

“Four...twenties?” Letho asks her, baffled.

She taps a tiny finger on one of the studs on his armor. “One,” she says, and goes on to the next one in the row. “Two, three, four…”

“Eighty,” Letho says hastily, guessing that she’s going to count all four twenties again if he doesn’t stop her. “I have _eighty_ studs on my armor, kid.”

“Eighty!” Julita says triumphantly. “Eighty is four twenties?”

“Yeah,” Letho says. He has no idea if kids this little can usually count to eighty. Hell, can they usually count to _twenty_? He never spends any time with the trainees - nobody wants him growling at the kids, they need to be trained not terrified after all.

“Why?” Julita asks.

“Why...is eighty four twenties?” Letho genuinely doesn’t know how to answer that.

“Why _these_ ,” Julita huffs, like it ought to have been obvious, tapping the metal again.

“Oh. That’s so if a monster hits me, it bounces off.”

“Oh!” Julita says. Auckes and Serrit have let go of the horse and are staring at Letho in blank disbelief.

“Letho,” Serrit says after a minute, “what the fuck.”

“That’s a _bad_ word,” Julita informs him solemnly.

Serrit gapes like a stunned fish, which is admittedly hilarious. Auckes raises an eyebrow at Letho. “Letho, where did you get a _kid_?”

“‘S Jan’s kid. Julita.”

“Alright,” Auckes says, with the air of someone trying to find a tiny spark of sanity in a sea of madness. “Why do _you_ have Jan’s kid?”

“Uh,” says Letho. He hasn’t really thought about how to _explain_ this madness.

“He’s my _uncle_ ,” Julita says, with a fine disdain in her tone. “Who’re you?”

Serrit mouths _uncle_ like he’s never heard the word before. Auckes’ eyebrows almost climb to the top of his bald head, but he steps closer and offers a dirty hand. “I’m Auckes; that’s Serrit. We’re your...Uncle Letho’s brothers.”

“Oh!” Julita says, and leans away from Letho to shake Auckes’ hand. Letho tightens his grip a little. _Gods_ , but she’s a squirmy little armful. “I am very pleased to meet you,” she adds, so carefully that Letho just _knows_ it’s something her father taught her to recite.

“Same, snakelet,” Auckes says. “So, Letho, you just come to heckle and show off your niece, or you actually going to _help_?”

Letho lifts Julita carefully down onto a bale of hay. “Stay there, yeah, kid?”

“Alright, Unca Letho!” she says, and curls her arms around her knees, and watches with wide blue-grey eyes as the three of them finish getting the damned horses re-shod. She probably learns a lot of new bad words, too, but Jan should’ve thought of that before he let a Viper carry her off.

When they’re finally done, Letho dusts his hands off and picks Julita up again and heads back for the keep. “Unca Letho,” Julita chirps as soon as it’s clear he’s no longer too busy to talk, “why did you gotta help? Mister Antoni never needed help.”

“Mister Antoni was the blacksmith?” Letho guesses. She nods. Letho shrugs, and Julita giggles when it makes her bounce. “Horses don’t like Vipers. I’m a Viper.” He taps his medallion, and Julita reaches out to touch it.

“That’s silly,” she says. “I like you. Horses should too.”

“Uh,” Letho says, baffled again. _I like you_. Like it’s that simple. “Well, they don’t.”

Julita considers that all the way back to Jan’s office, and Letho puts her down and escapes while she’s babbling about her afternoon.

He has no idea how he feels about the whole experience, except that it wasn’t...it wasn’t _bad_ , really. Just weird as hell.

Julita finds him again a few days later, and he takes her for a walk along the battlements, pointing out the pastures full of horses and a wyvern soaring up near the peak of a distant mountain and the Witchers coming up the Trail from a trip out into the world, so far away they’re nothing but little black dots against the green and grey of the path. Julita leans out too far over the battlements, trusting Letho’s hands to hold her safely, and asks dozens of questions, and giggles whenever Letho starts to swear and bites the words off again.

It’s still not bad. It’s still _so fucking weird_.

But it becomes a sort of habit. Every three or four days, Julita shows up, and Letho brings her along for whatever he was going to do that afternoon anyhow. She’s not allowed on the training grounds - fuck, she’d get squashed - or in the alchemical laboratories, and he remembers Jan’s request and won’t let her actually _hold_ any knives when he goes down to the armory to make sure all the Viper gear is in decent condition, but otherwise he doesn’t mind having her around. It’s even sort of...well, it’s sort of _nice_ , being around a little kid who doesn’t stink of fear.

She likes learning to care for horses and armor, watching him oil and sharpen knives and swords, walking with him on the battlements, racing him around the courtyard or the pastures - Letho lets her catch him, or catches _her_ and swings her around like she’s light as a feather, because to him, she is, and she shrieks with glee and flings her arms wide and demands he do it again.

Julita smells _happy_ when she spends time with him, and it’s fucking addictive.

She even eats supper with him sometimes, perched on the seat between him and Serrit, across from Auckes and Zofia. Zofia is _good_ with kids, somewhat to everyone’s surprise (except Auckes’), and the first time Julita sits with them, it’s Zofia who pantomimes cutting up her food small for her, and serving her from the big platters, while Julita is distracted by asking Serrit about the scar on his nose. Letho is grateful for the help, honestly. What does _he_ know about feeding a kid? Absolutely fuck all, that’s what.

So he gets used to having Julita around, to keeping a tiny bit of his attention devoted to listening for the patter of her feet and staying alert for the wash of happiness and fresh bread that are the strongest notes of her scent.

He notices, in a vague sort of way, that she’s getting larger - kids grow, he knows that - and a lot more eloquent, but it’s still a bit of a surprise the day she hugs him about the waist instead of the knee. It brings him to a screeching halt, in fact, staring down at her and trying to add up the years. It’s been - three? No, three years was when the Wolf went off and came back with a cub - four? _Five_ years since he brought her up the Trail on his back, a tiny warm bundle that hardly weighed anything. She still doesn’t weigh _that_ much, not to Witcher strength, but she’s definitely larger.

“Shit,” he says, “are you _ten_ already?”

Julita laughs. “Next week’s my birthday,” she says. “And then I can be formally apprenticed to Mistress Emilia!”

“Huh,” Letho says. He’s brought her trinkets for her birthdays, these last fuck-it-really-is-five years. But this year - “Want a knife?”

Julita’s eyes go wide. “For my birthday?”

“Yeah,” Letho says.

“ _Really?_ ” Julita breathes.

“Your Da said no knives until you were ten,” Letho shrugs.

“You’re the _best_ , Unca Letho,” Julita says, quite seriously. “Will you teach me to use it, too?”

Letho thinks about that for a minute, steering her towards the armory with a hand on her back. “Guess I could,” he allows. “Not like Witchers fight, though.”

“Of course not,” Julita says. “I’m never going to _be_ a Witcher.”

_And thank every god for that_ , Letho thinks but does not say. The idea of Julita screaming her way through the Trials - Julita _dying_ in the Trials, as would be more likely than not - ugh, no, Letho can’t even think about it. “Should ask Zofia,” he says instead. “She’s good.”

“I will,” Julita says. “But I want to learn from _you_ , too.”

“Alright,” Letho says, and the warm thing in his chest that shows up every time Julita does gets even bigger and warmer.

He commissions the blacksmith to make a knife for Julita that evening, specifying something small and light enough for a child’s hands, and a week later Jan meets his eyes and sighs in mock exasperation as Julita squeals with glee over the delicate little blade. “I _did_ say when she was ten,” Jan says ruefully.

“You did,” Letho agrees, and then, “Uncles are supposed to spoil their nieces, right?”

Jan laughs and claps Letho on the shoulder, and Letho is still genuinely startled every time one of the humans of Kaer Morhen treats him like he’s - not _harmless_ , never that, but not _dangerous_ either. Any of them except Julita, anyhow; he’s pretty much gotten used to _her_ treating him as a climbing structure. “So they are,” Jan says. “You _will_ teach her how to use that safely?”

“Safely for her,” Letho says, nodding. “Not for whoever she stabs.”

Jan laughs and rubs his forehead. “I am sincerely hoping she never needs to stab _anyone_ ,” he says.

“Well, yeah, but she should still know how.”

Jan nods, and makes no objection to the lessons, and Letho recruits Zofia and spends two afternoons a week teaching Julita how to hold her knife and where to stab someone who dares to grab her anywhere she doesn’t want to be grabbed. Zofia is very blunt about how the outside world treats women: no _Witcher_ would mistreat a woman, especially not in Kaer Morhen, under the Wolf’s eye - and even one stupid enough to anger the Wolf might hesitate before daring to lay hands on _Letho’s_ niece. The Wolf would only _kill_ them, after all. Letho is not so kind. And the servants Jan has hired are both sensible and - so far as Letho’s ever been able to tell - fairly decent people. But out in the world, that’s not so true, and if Julita ever plans to leave the keep, she should be able to deal with that.

After a couple of weeks, Julita starts showing up to knife lessons with loaves of bread. At the beginning, they’re sort of lopsided and not quite properly baked, with odd raw spots in the dough or burnt bits on the crust, but Julita looks very proud all the same. “I made it _myself_ ,” she tells Letho when she hands him the first one. “What do you think?”

“Not bad,” Letho says, because _he_ can’t bake bread, after all, so it’s already better than he could do. But he has to admit even _he_ can tell when she starts to improve, because the loaves become more even, more consistent in texture, and the crusts are nicely browned instead of burnt, and the taste gets better, too.

As Julita gets older, she starts demanding actual _critiques_ instead of just “Not bad” or “Doing better.” Letho fumbles through two or three loaves’ worth of baffled attempts at coming up with something to say that isn’t “Tastes fine to me,” and resigns himself to looking like an idiot, and bribes Zofia and Auckes to distract Julita for an afternoon with a promise that he’ll watch the door the next time they decide to use the hot springs at two in the morning and don’t want to be interrupted, and goes down to the kitchens and asks Mistress Emilia, as politely as he can - which isn’t very - to teach him what sort of critique one gives a loaf of bread.

Mistress Emilia is a middle-aged woman with arms that impress even a Witcher and a thoroughly no-nonsense air, and she looks him up and down and snorts. “So you’re Julita’s uncle,” she says, and proceeds to give him a brisk, terrifyingly comprehensive lesson in crust and crumb and color and finish and half a dozen other things he hadn’t even dreamed of considering, plus a lecture on different types of flour. Letho didn’t even know there _were_ so many different types of flour.

He escapes, clothes dusted with flour and head whirling with new knowledge, just before supper, and the next day he’s able to tell Julita her most recent loaf has a pretty good tooth to it but the crust needs to be shinier, and she _lights up_ and hugs him tightly around the ribs - shit, when did she get tall enough to hug him around the _ribs?_ \- and tells him he’s the best uncle in the world.

Zofia is kind enough not to laugh at him very much when he spends the next few hours wandering about in a daze. Best uncle? _Him?_ He’s still a fucking _Viper_ , his hands have been soaked in oceans of blood, he’s as much a monster as every other Witcher is.

It gets harder to remember that, here in Kaer Morhen, with human servants who don’t flinch from him, with Jan who claps him on the shoulder and smiles at him, with Julita who calls him _uncle_ and trusts him utterly.

Letho goes to Eskel and begs to be put at the head of the roster for monster contracts, and spends the next two months out killing things that really deserve to be killed. It helps to remind him what he’s _for_ , really and truly for. He’s a killer, plain and simple. Nothing more.

And then he gets back and Julita is waiting when he walks in the gates, jittering from foot to foot, and comes _sprinting_ over as soon as she sees him, hugging him as hard as she can - surprisingly hard, being an apprentice baker builds up the arms marvelously - and says, muffled against his armor, “Unca Letho, I _missed_ you.”

Oh.

There’s a pang somewhere in Letho’s chest that he can’t explain away with some old injury. “I’m fine,” he says, and pats her on her back. Has he ever had someone who would _miss_ him before? Who would give a flying fuck if he came home or not? Maybe his brothers, but even then, Vipers aren’t particularly _close_ ; aside from Auckes and Serrit, would any of them do more than raise a glass to his memory before forgetting him?

But he’s got a _niece_ now, and _she’d_ miss him.

Guess he’d better put a little more effort into staying around. Monster or not, he can’t disappoint Julita like that.

“I’m fine,” he says again, a little more strongly. “C’mon, don’t you have a loaf of bread for your favorite uncle?”

Julita giggles and tucks herself under his arm as they walk into the keep. “I made the bread rolls for supper for the _whole keep_ ,” she informs him. “Can I eat at the Viper table, so you can tell me how I did?”

“Of course, snakelet,” Letho says, ruffling her hair and grinning when she squawks.

“But you gotta bathe first,” she declares, wrinkling her nose at his grimy armor. “You smell like blood and dirt, Unca Letho.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Letho chuckles, and Julita laughs too.

The rolls are damn good, and he tells her so.

Something about that whole episode _settles_ something in him, something he can’t name or describe. He stops twitching so much when Jan claps him on the shoulder or Zofia leans against him or Emilia shoves a bowl into his hands and demands he put those muscles to use if he’s going to come into _her_ bakery and ask questions all afternoon. He doesn’t find himself boggling every time Jan or Julita calls him Julita’s uncle. And when he ends up being tapped to help guard the White Wolf’s cub, he doesn’t spend too long wondering _why_ , not when everyone in the keep knows that he’s as used to dealing with very small girl-children as any Witcher in the keep, and more so than most.

Little Ciri’s pretty nice, honestly. A lot more mischievous than Julita ever was, but nice all the same. And as Julita gets older, and her apprenticeship turns into a journeyman role, she has less time for her uncle, so Letho doesn’t feel like he’s neglecting her when he spends time with his new charge. But he still makes sure to have a few afternoons free every week to spend with Julita, either working on knife forms or joining her in the bakery and kneading whatever dough he’s handed.

It’s...peaceful, which is weird as hell. But kind of nice all the same.

Emilia is kind enough to give Letho a heads-up a month or so before she tells _Julita_ she’s good enough to be a master of her craft, which means Letho has time to commission a really nice rolling pin from the carpenters, and an equally nice dough scraper from the blacksmith, and conspire a bit with Jan, who is having an apron made, so the new tools will fit perfectly into pockets on the apron’s front. They throw a little party after supper the night Julita is formally raised to her new rank in her craft, and Julita cries and hugs Letho and her father and Emilia and anyone else who stands still long enough, and it’s...it’s a damn good night, is what it is.

It’s sure as hell nothing like welcoming a new _Viper_ , because for all the undeniable effort and labor Julita has put into becoming a master baker, the process has not involved the same sort of agonizing _pain_ that becoming a Witcher does. Letho is glad of that. He doesn’t think he could bear it, if Julita were to be in that sort of pain. He doesn’t know how the trainers manage it, sending the boys down to the Trials, if the trainers feel anything like as fond of their charges as he has grown of his adoptive niece. Maybe they don’t; maybe they’re all as stone-hearted as Witchers ought to be, as Letho always thought _he_ was until Julita came into his life like a tiny tow-headed whirlwind.

He’s so fond of her, and so proud, even if it really isn’t any of _his_ doing that she’s grown up into a young woman as brave and clever and self-possessed as any uncle could desire.

He stays up late that night, drinking with Jan and Emilia, while Julita goes off with her friends among the other young servants to enjoy themselves out from under their parents’ watchful eyes - they can’t get into _too_ much trouble in Kaer Morhen, after all - and somehow drinking turns into reminiscences of what Julita was like as a child, tiny and fearless and energetic, always full of questions. “Always getting her fingers in my _dough_ ,” Emilia laughs. “Sticky little monster of a child.”

“All children tend towards stickiness,” Jan points out, and Letho snorts. He certainly found a lot of fingerprints on his armor, those first few years. Jan tops up their cups of mead and adds, “Thank you. Thank you both.”

Emilia smiles and raises her cup to him. “It was a pleasure to have such an eager apprentice,” she says. “And I hope you will not take it amiss, my friend, but I have come to think of her as close as blood-kin; a niece, perhaps, if not a daughter.”

Jan smiles, and pats her hand. “My Roza would be glad that her daughter had so marvelous a second mother,” he says warmly, and both humans tear up a little.

Letho drains his mead. He doesn’t know what Jan is thanking _him_ for. He hasn’t done anything much - nothing like Emilia has. But then both humans turn to him, and Jan says, “My family all are dead, but my own brothers could not have been so good to my Julita as you have.”

“Didn’t do much,” Letho objects, feeling oddly like he wants to flee. He doesn’t know what to do with the warm affection in Jan’s scent, the way Emilia smiles at him.

“Oh, no, not much,” Jan laughs. “Only taught Julita to use a knife, and care for a horse, and climb like a squirrel, and fear nothing at all. Only taught and protected and loved her.”

Letho chokes. That’s a word he’s never used - never dared even _think_ \- whatever this warmth in his chest is, it can’t be _love_. Witchers don’t love.

Well.

Except for how obviously Witchers _do_ , if the way the Wolf dotes on his cub and his Consort is any evidence - the Wolf, and Eskel, and Lambert, and Auckes, and a dozen others who have found lovers or who treat the cub or the other servants’ children as dear as blood-kin. _Vipers_ don’t love, except - Auckes does love Zofia, it’s obvious in his scent, and maybe it’s not the same, but the affection binding Auckes and Serrit and Letho himself is a lot stronger than the mere tolerance which connects them to most of their _other_ brothers -

Well fuck. Huh.

Letho fills his cup again, sort of wishing it was White Gull instead of mead, and drains it, and scowls down at his hands for a minute. Big, scarred, ugly hands, that have killed more men and monsters than he cares to try and count, that have been soaked again and again in blood - that have cradled a crying child, and kneaded bread dough, and flung a laughing girl high in the air to catch her again as gently as a breeze. “Well,” he says at last, “had to look out for my niece, right?”

Jan chuckles gently, and actually reaches out and _pats Letho’s hand_ , fearless and fond. “So you did,” he says, “and my daughter could not have found a finer uncle if we searched the world entire.”

“Huh,” Letho says, and that warm feeling in his chest is back, stronger than ever before, and he finds himself smiling crookedly at Jan. “Well, Viper Witchers _are_ the superior School, after all.”

Jan and Emilia both burst into laughter, and Emilia smacks Letho’s arm - startlingly hard for a human, actually - and Jan goes and gets the _good_ whiskey out, and they drink to Julita, their sun-bright girl - the girl who taught a Viper how to love.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Never Fear the Thing You Feel](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25267099) by [AceOfTigers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceOfTigers/pseuds/AceOfTigers)




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